The Great Silence (1968)

Sense of Snow

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

An outstanding Spaghetti Western from Sergio Corbucci, the director of Django, previously unreleased in this country. Jean-Louis Trintignant and Klaus Kinski co-star as good and evil bounty hunters. To keep from being arrested, neither will ever draw first. Things get complicated when a beautiful widow hires Trintignant to kill Kinski. Corbucci uses the same wide-open spaces as his colleague Sergio Leone, but goes much deeper under the surface, using snow and bitter cold to beautiful advantage. Ennio Morricone provides an excellent score. Dubbed in English. (Fantoma's DVD features an essay and a video introduction by Alex Cox and the alternate "happy" ending.)